


The Misconceptions of Us

by bunnoculars



Category: SHINee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 11:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14424657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnoculars/pseuds/bunnoculars
Summary: Jonghyun and Taemin dated and broke up. They're still together in every other way, and neither one of them can move on.





	1. The Misconceptions of You

**Author's Note:**

> Seeing Son Yejin in a drama again has made me so nostalgic for _Alone in Love_. Rather than re-watch it for the millionth time, I listened to the OST a lot and wrote this instead.

Taemin is happy. They won tonight.

Those two things are making it hard for Jonghyun to stop smiling, when he’s been doing it so long his face hurts.

“What should we do to celebrate next time~?”

As Minho says it the most obnoxious grin splits his face.

“There won’t be a next time thanks to you~” Kibum retorts, giving him a dirty look, and that’s the reaction Minho was looking for. He does this every time. Jonghyun thinks it gets old, but those two don’t. Then Minho opens his mouth and Kibum snaps, “Do you want to die?”

Minho beams at him, but he shuts up too. Maybe he doesn’t _not_ believe in jinxes. Maybe he’s finally learned how far is too far with Kibum. 

Then Taemin has to have his say, turns to Jonghyun and doesn’t think and suggests, “You could show your abs, hyung.”

The air goes still, and suddenly everyone is watching Jonghyun, but all Jonghyun can see is Taemin’s own words hitting him. His mouth tightens and his shoulders fall and that’s all it takes, he can barely look at Jonghyun now. That ruins things for Jonghyun, but Taemin’s never going to know that, because Jonghyun doesn’t want him to try and watch what he says any more than he already does.

“The concept is suits this time, Taeminnie. Should I just rip my shirt open?”

He demonstrates with his hoodie, cocks his hips and yanks both sides of his collar and forces the zipper all the way down, gives Taemin the stupidest sexy face he can muster. It works. The rest of them are still eyeing Jonghyun, but now Taemin’s forgotten himself, laughing at him.

“Show your strength, then. Pushups or something, you can do like a million,” Taemin says, insistent now.

“I like that idea,” Jingi cuts in, and Jonghyun automatically likes it less, if it’s not Taemin saying it. “I like that it’s you, and not the rest of us.”

“Why does it have to be me?”

“Aigoo, as if you don’t like it. Stop working out so much if you don’t want to show off,” Kibum says quickly, before either Jingi or Taemin can reply. It’s always better to cut them off before they get carried away, Jonghyun knows that, but still.

Taemin catches him looking, and gives him a small smile. Jonghyun takes it and moves on.

It’s a nice problem to have, but they were too boring this encore. Other groups make insane promises in the event that they get first, dares, jokes, fan service, you name it. In the old days Jonghyun would cry every time they won, not because he ever wanted that to be a thing, but now he can make it off camera before the tears come. He can get through the song, and smile, and say thank you. Now that “Dream Girl” keeps taking them to the top, though, they have to come up with something better than that.

They can figure it out later. The day that was never going to end is on its last legs. All that’s left is saying goodbye to the team that worked on them today and then getting out, but they won, so Jonghyun does it right. Gives everyone that wants one a hug, catches the coordi noona who worked on his updo twice and lets her pinch his cheeks because he whined so much about the hairspray fumes. By the time he runs out of people he’s getting emotional, so he doesn’t fight the feeling, just moves on to hugging the members as well, a little closer to crying each time.

He gets to Taemin last. Saves him for last. Taemin takes one look at his face and folds him into his arms, patting his back awkwardly, probably trying really hard not to laugh at him again. He’s so warm and soft and he smells like Taemin, and by the time Taemin finally relaxes against him, Jonghyun knows he should be letting him go, but he lingers instead. Taemin could pull away anytime, but he doesn’t.

Taemin is just waiting for him to decide he’s okay again, Jonghyun knows that. And he doesn’t want to, not at all, but he lets Taemin go. Looks like he’s not going to lose it, after all. Not yet, at least.

“You looked cool on TV. I saw some of it earlier, while we were waiting,” Taemin tells him, a little pink.

Jonghyun couldn’t watch the tape this morning because he wasn’t feeling it, and this is Taemin’s way of telling him he doesn’t have anything to worry about, in case that’s what’s upsetting him. He could have said something _before_ they won, and he should know by now that this is just the way Jonghyun is, there’s not reason for it and he’s not even upset, but that’s so like him Jonghyun’s smile returns.

“You did, too,” he replies. 

He’s only kind of lying. He didn’t see the Taemin on the monitor, but he watched Taemin do his part for real, as much as he could, and that’s enough for him to know. Taemin doesn’t think so, he’s giving Jonghyun this look, but before he can open his mouth Jonghyun reaches out and ruffles his hair, says, “Whatever you do looks good,” as if that settles it. Taemin’s blush deepens, and Jonghyun is finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes off him, even if he’s making it worse.

Before he’s ready, Kibum finds the two of them again, then Minho and Jingi too, and the moment is gone.

When the five of them finally make it out into the night the fresh air just makes Jonghyun tired. He’s probably crashing now, and maybe he’ll be able to sleep longer than two hours tonight. Maybe he can get thirty minutes in the van.

He gives Taemin a look while Manager Hyung fumbles for his keys. Taemin knows right away what he means, what he’s asking, Jonghyun can see it in his face. He lets Taemin get in ahead of him, follows him into the back. The van pulls out into the street and the city scrolls by their windows and Minho fiddles with the radio in the front seat, skipping through programs at random, and Jonghyun puts his head on Taemin’s shoulder and closes his eyes. Taemin lets him do it.

 

“I can’t do this anymore, hyung.”

That’s what Taemin told him, two months ago. That was the first time Taemin ever said to Jonghyun that he wanted to talk, and considering how it went, Jonghyun kind of hopes it’ll be the last. All it took was that one thing, and Jonghyun couldn’t hear anything else, didn’t let Taemin say any more, either. _I can’t do this anymore._

By “this,” Taemin meant dating Jonghyun.

It just happened, the way everything happens. They met, years and years ago now. They grew close, they worked together, they lived together, and then one day Jonghyun looked at Taemin and he was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. When he finally told Taemin that things had changed for him, it turned out that Taemin felt the same. Jonghyun had thought the hard part was over. They had each other.

He spent the next half a year learning how wrong he was. It was always the small things, things Jonghyun couldn’t do for Taemin, things he couldn’t say to him, promises he couldn’t make, all the time he never had for Taemin. And then finally Taemin couldn’t take it anymore. Jonghyun never realized until after, but it must have been the same for Taemin, there must have been a lot of things Taemin had wanted to give him and never could, too. It wasn’t anything Jonghyun said or did. It wasn’t that he meant any less to Taemin. It was just their lives.

At the time, he couldn’t see that. He’d yelled and fought because he couldn’t beg or cry, not in front of Taemin. Taemin started staying out all night or sleeping at his parents’ house, probably trying to give Jonghyun as much space as he possibly could. Ninety percent of their lives went on like nothing happened, because in that ninety percent, nothing had. And now they’ve gotten so busy again that Taemin can no longer run away from him for the other ten, either. Jonghyun never wanted him to.

In all this time, nothing has changed. Neither of them has moved on. They’re still broken up, but they’re still together in every other way. If the day ever comes when Jonghyun can look at Taemin again without his heart fluttering, he wants it to stay that way. Taemin is forever, one way or the other.

So before promotions started, it was his turn to bring Taemin out to the river and say what he needed Taemin to hear.

“Let’s go back to the way things were, Taemin-ah.”

 

Jonghyun drifts in and out the whole way home, then wakes up for good when they get there. He doesn’t really have a choice, because the others have hit their second wind and now they’re hyped up, ready to celebrate for real. 

All that means is walking to the convenience store a couple blocks down from their dorm and raiding the snack section. Manager Hyung has promised to look the other way if they cheat on their diets, as long as they let him sleep through it, so anything goes.

Jonghyun isn’t really hungry for anything, so he follows Taemin around with a basket, and doesn’t tell him off when he loads it up in no time flat, grabbing one thing after another. Jonghyun has never been able to handle cute things, and anyway, he likes it better when Taemin takes whatever he wants, instead of confusing and guilt tripping himself, trying to choose between the things he likes. It’s not like the old days, when Jonghyun always had to cut Taemin off. They can afford all kinds of dumb stuff now.

Taemin hits up all his favorites, and maybe Jonghyun keeps an eye out for anything he’s missed. “Look, Taemin-ah, they have banana milk, too,” and, “That came in a bigger size,” and, “Hey, ice cream,” and Taemin always listens to him.

And then, other times Taemin will pick out something Jonghyun knows he hates, and then he’ll glance at Jonghyun, like he’s checking to see if he’s gotten him right. Even when he’s wrong, Jonghyun doesn’t really mind. If he doesn’t eat it, Jingi will at some point.

“Put some of that back, Taemin-ah,” is the first thing out of Minho’s mouth when they regroup, before he turns on Jonghyun, too. “What were you doing while he cleaned out the whole store? Can’t you say no?”

It’s not even a real question, but Jonghyun can’t come up with a good way to answer to that. Kibum doesn’t wait for him to think of something, he’s more interested in the bottle of soju Jingi’s just plunked down on the counter.

“What, are we drinking now too? You can’t, you’ll bloat, you’ll drink too much, you’ll hate yourself tomorrow,” Kibum rattles off, so fast Jingi probably didn’t even try to keep up. He’s just going to do whatever he wants anyway, same as Taemin. Jonghyun doesn’t know why Kibum and Minho bother.

It’s not like Jonghyun cares, either, especially when Jingi gets a hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder, pushes him in front of him, says, “Here, put it on the counter, I’ll pay for everybody’s,” like Taemin’s excesses somehow cancel out his own.

Jonghyun forgot the clerk was even here until he meets her eyes, heaving their spoils onto the counter between them. He has one second where he’s sure she knows who he is, but she doesn’t open her mouth until she’s rung them up, and they’re all weighed down with bags and bags of stuff. Then suddenly she’s saying, “I’m sorry, I’m a fan, do you think you could,” and patting herself down for pen and paper, something, anything.

They drop everything and sign whatever she gives them, and then Minho asks who she likes best. She can’t even look at Taemin when she names him, has to say it into her hands, but in the same breath she asks for a hug. Jonghyun can tell Taemin is uncomfortable, but there’s nothing he can do about it, when the important thing is that she can’t.

The walk back seems so much longer somehow. Jonghyun lags behind, and it doesn’t take long for Taemin to fall in with him, slowing down and shortening his stride to match his. The others get further and further ahead of them, voices carrying in the empty street.

Eventually Taemin asks, “What time do we have to get up tomorrow?”

“Four or five?” Jonghyun replies. He’s just guessing, but Taemin’s face falls so dramatically Jonghyun almost wants to smile. It’s already past midnight now. “What, you can’t do it? You won’t? You want to rebel?”

“Mm,” is all Taemin has the energy to say. Then, “Hyung.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you get any sleep earlier? Minho was so loud.”

Suddenly he wants to ask if he’s still Jonghyun hyung when he’s out of earshot.

“Some,” he says instead.

He only catches Taemin’s slow nod because he’s been looking at him this whole time. Even in the dingy yellow light, no make up to hide the dark circles under his eyes, he’s so pretty Jonghyun’s heart hurts.

He keeps thinking this might as well have been a date. He keeps thinking that two months ago, it would have been. This was as far as they could ever get, convenience stores and street stalls and Jonghyun’s car and walks by the river, all while the rest of Seoul slept. Jonghyun wants to hold Taemin’s hand, but that’s not new, either. He never could before.

“Taemin-ah.” He doesn’t know he’s said it aloud until Taemin glances over at him, and he has nothing else. “Never mind.” The moment lengthens, maybe it’s passed, and he doesn’t know if Taemin is still waiting, or if that was enough for him to move on, but he wants to say something, so, “You worked hard today.”

Taemin gives him a weird look. “We did all the same things, hyung.”

Most people would know to return the compliment, instead of refusing it. Taemin isn’t most people, though, he’s Taemin, and that’s why Jonghyun is smiling like an idiot, why there’s a lump in his throat. Why he’s back to where he was earlier, feeling too much.

He gives Taemin a minute, then says, “Minho was right, I should have stopped you. If you eat half what you bought the coordi noonas will kill you tomorrow, you won’t be able to fit into anything.”

“Worry about yourself,” Taemin replies. Then he really thinks about it, narrows his eyes, says warningly, “Don’t touch Jingi hyung’s soju. Don’t even think about it.”

And that’s it. The feeling inside Jonghyun takes over.

“The moon looks so lonely up there, it’s depressing. Tonight looks good for drinking~”

“Hyung, stop.”

“Seeing how tired Taeminnie is makes me tired too,” and as he’s saying it Jonghyun is thinking he really should stop, but instead, “I think I’ll get drunk. Then I’ll be able to sleep.”

“Hyung, you’re not funny.”

And then Jonghyun ruins it, goes too far. Says, “I can’t use you again, so I’ll use soju instead.”

That doesn’t get him _hyung, shut up,_ or _hyung, you’re an ass,_ or _hyung, I hate you._ For the longest time Taemin can’t say anything at all, and Jonghyun goes through it all on his own. He can’t hate Taemin so he hates himself. He hates every single detail of his life, good and bad, that could have put him out here in the dark, at this exact moment.

“Don’t drink,” is the only thing Taemin has for him. “You hate yourself when you drink.”

There’s a lot Taemin doesn’t need to know, so Jonghyun says, “It was a just a joke.”

 

Different music show, same old waiting room. Today is the same day as yesterday, which was the same as the day before. The way their week is going, chances are they’ll pull off another win, but right now Jonghyun is stuck on the part where he doesn’t want to deal with his life. So he’s not. His stomach isn’t eating itself. He’s not freaking the fuck out. He’s got his eyes shut and if anyone asks, he’s trying to sleep. 

“Hyung, what do you think?”

Taemin.

He and Minho have been bickering about something for the last five minutes. What, Jonghyun doesn’t know. Doesn’t care, either.

“What Taeminnie said,” Jonghyun replies.

“At least pretend to be objective, hyung.” Minho this time, in a huff. And then he says, “He doesn’t count, ask someone else,” and Jonghyun forgets himself.

“Why don’t I count?”

As soon as it’s out of his mouth he wishes he could take it back. The silence that follows crawls under his skin. He thinks maybe it won’t get to him so much if he opens his eyes, lets everything else in too, but that doesn’t help. Minho is giving him this look, like he’s too obvious to put into words, and Taemin is having a hard time meeting his eyes, he can tell.

Minho calls Kibum over, appeals to him instead, because apparently asking his best friend is kosher.

Kibum’s eyes flit from over the three of them, come to a rest on Jonghyun. “I’m going with Taeminnie.”

Jonghyun takes it badly. He thinks maybe the way Kibum always covers for him is worse than Minho bringing it up constantly. Taemin hasn’t caught on this time, either, he’s too busy laughing in Minho’s face.

“Jingi hyung,” Minho says immediately, his last hope.

Jingi takes long enough that it seems like he’s putting some thought into it, before he gives himself away with an easy smile.

“Taeminnie~”

Jingi has his arms full of Taemin in half a second, and this time Jonghyun knows better but he says it anyway. “How come I didn’t get a hug?”

Minho can’t leave that alone, either, not when they’ve turned this into four against one. “Taeminnie, be honest. Do you like Jingi hyung or Jonghyun hyung better~?”

“This is why we all like Taeminnie better than you,” Jonghyun retorts, before Taemin tries to get that right. “You’re not cute at all.”

That’s a little much. No one thinks it’s funny and he’s not sure it was supposed to be.

“You weren’t even listening, hyung, you just said whatever,” Taemin says reproachfully, but it’s okay, this time Jonghyun hasn’t embarrassed him. He comes over obediently and leans down. Jonghyun squeezes him tight.

“You asked me,” Jonghyun says into his hair, and he feels stupid for pointing it out, kind of. The scent of Taemin’s shampoo is making it hard to think.

A little later, Minho loses at rock-paper-scissors and makes a trip to the vending machines down the hallway. He just can’t win today, and Jonghyun feels sorry enough that he comes with.

He regrets it as soon as Minho opens his mouth.

“Hyung, it’s been months now.”

They both know what he means.

“Yeah,” Jonghyun says. That’s all he’s going to say. He was hating Kibum a half hour ago, but now he wishes he were here.

“Nothing’s changed. Neither of you has changed,” Minho goes on, and it takes him so long to say so little, glancing around and chewing on his words, that Jonghyun wants to laugh at him. It’s not Minho’s problem and he’s the one trying to talk here of all places, people everywhere, thirty minutes before they go on TV.

There’s nothing funny about it when Jonghyun realizes Minho is expecting a real answer, and decides not to give him one. Just concentrates on rounding up his change.

“Yeah.”

Minho makes a frustrated noise. “I don’t get it.”

He says he doesn’t get it, and yet here he is, just another day of their lives, trying to figure out how to say something while saying nothing at all. Minho has dated before, too, and he’s never lasted more than six months. He knows it’s more of the same. Maybe he hasn’t been in love, though, maybe he’s never found out how hard it is, putting all your heart into the things no one can see.

“There’s nothing to get,” Jonghyun tells him finally, and he thinks he hides how much it costs him to say it pretty well, bending over and collecting one drink, then the next. He runs out of money after three. “You pay for yours and Jingi hyung’s, I’ll make it up to you later.”

Minho surveys the cans in his hands, and Jonghyun’s chest tightens the second his eyes land on Taemin’s peach juice, his second favorite because they were out of apple, but Minho doesn’t use it against him. Just says that Jonghyun got Kibum wrong. And whatever, Jingi can have that one, it doesn’t matter. None of it has to.

Jonghyun knows Taemin’s likes and dislikes from times long before he started wanting Taemin to like him.

“You said we haven’t changed,” Jonghyun says, taking himself by surprise as much as Minho, and then he has to go on. “Maybe you just keep looking at us the same way. People use the same words over and over again, but they mean something different every time. They do the same stuff every day, too, but the way they feel about it changes.” 

He doesn’t mention the way he feels right now, that he hates himself for even saying it, or that Minho shouldn’t be the one he’s trying to convince. Taemin’s drink bites into his fingertips, Minho can see right through him, and Jonghyun doesn’t even want to care.

 

They win again on another night.

This time, Jonghyun smiles and thanks everyone he can think of, and then he stands up there and does his parts on autopilot and thinks a lot about the time where they don’t make it, because it’s coming, because today just brings them closer to it. He’s in that kind of mood.

There’s no fade to black. It’s not even the end. It turns out tonight is the night they’re making the rounds on their Super Junior hyungs’ radio shows, first Sukira and then Sim Sim Tapa. Manager Hyung got his dates mixed up, and he’s so apologetic, in between rushing them into the van and swearing his way through traffic, that none of them can get mad. This means they won’t get to eat, so Jingi promises to buy them all chicken later, when they get back, and Manager Hyung pretends he didn’t hear him.

Taemin is starving right now. He keeps it to himself, but his jittering foot, his pinched brow, and his head thunking against the window tell Jonghyun everything.

“Taeminnie.”

Taemin glances over at him. Jonghyun just shrugs at him, doesn’t say anything and doesn’t say anything, until finally Taemin huffs and turns back to the city lights. It takes longer than it probably should.

“Taeminnie,” Jonghyun says again. Then when Taemin ignores him, he finds Taemin’s foot with his own, pokes his side. “Taeminnie~”

_“What?”_

Jonghyun lets himself smile. “Nothing.”

Taemin rounds on him, look on his face like he’s about to explode, but the fight goes out of him as soon as Jonghyun catches his eye. Then he’s back to trying to understand Jonghyun, when he never will, because Taemin never gets it when it’s about himself. He’s so easy it fucks with Jonghyun a little.

“What’s with you?” Taemin says eventually, and he’s really asking. Jonghyun has to think of something.

He doesn’t want to lie, so he whines instead, tells Taemin, “I jammed my finger in the door earlier, look,” and shows him. It’s a little red and a little crooked, and that’s all.

Taemin isn’t too impressed, but he’s not laughing either. “Does it hurt?”

Barely. “Yeah, a lot.”

“Aigoo, let me see,” Taemin says, grabbing his hand and tugging it into his lap, playing with Jonghyun’s fingers.

They didn’t start doing this kind of thing when they started dating, and back then it never made Jonghyun’s face this hot, never made his pulse jump, his breathing tighten. It never made him want to pull Taemin in against him. He can’t figure out how to go back, and he can’t make himself try any harder. He’s not sure he’s tried at all.

He’s not worried about it right now. The important thing is the next time Taemin’s stomach growls, Taemin is able to ignore it.

That’s the best Jonghyun can do for him. He doesn’t think about why that just makes him feel like shit. Instead he turns and stares out his window, and the world stares back, dark and silent. Taemin’s hand is so small in his.

 

Everything catches up with Jonghyun by the time they reach Sim Sim Tapa, and as soon as he sits down he decides he’s never getting up again. Shindong hyung sends his staff to the cafeteria for kimbap and caffeine, and Taemin eats his fill. Jonghyun is left to himself again, and somehow that’s harder. Taemin doesn’t need him anymore, but he keeps looking at him, like that was all it took to make Taemin forget he shouldn’t be doing this to Jonghyun. Just holding Taemin’s hand for a few minutes.

Taemin fails at rapping and when Jonghyun laughs at him Taemin smiles back so hard his eyes disappear. And then later Taemin is up for a sexy dance, and it’s crazy that Taemin has no idea what to do, crazy how saying that word out loud always trips him up, so Jonghyun has to save him. Says, “Taemin-goon, dance how I taught you!”

For a second he teeters, because he taught Taemin a lot of things, but Taemin doesn’t go there. He knows what Jonghyun is talking about right away. He tips his head up, skips his feet, wiggles his butt, sticks his hands out at his sides, and he’s just as cute as he always was, whenever he let Jonghyun play with him, did whatever Jonghyun wanted and smiled just for him. He’s so cute Jonghyun wants to kiss him stupid.

They play games, and time passes. If you can’t answer, you lose, you have to play again.

Shindong hyung asks them to name one thing that makes them better than the others, and Taemin says he’s taller than Jonghyun. That’s true, but only by an inch or two, and Jonghyun doesn’t have to like it.

Shindong hyung asks them whom they would do a subunit with, and Taemin chooses Jonghyun. Good. He would have been offended if Taemin hadn’t.

Another time Shindong hyung corners Taemin into saying that Jonghyun is his style. At least that he’d change himself to look like Jonghyun. It was down to him or Jingi and Taemin still hesitated, but Jonghyun will forgive him. He knows he does things to Taemin. From the look on Taemin’s face he’s doing them to him right now.

And then the final round. The last one left this time is taking Shindong hyung’s job as DJ for the rest of the show, while everyone else gets to go home early. An extra half hour to sleep or do something else instead. If he had Taemin, there’s nothing Jonghyun wouldn’t have done or said to buy that kind of time. He still wants it so badly he can taste it, and he still wants to spend it in their room, just the two of them.

Shindong hyung asks them which part of which member Manager Hyung said was beautiful to him, even as a man. Taemin is the obvious answer, but then there are so many things. And as a man there’s so much Jonghyun still wants to say, this is the kind of excuse he spent his days waiting for when Taemin was his. He makes himself drop out after the first couple of guesses, stops digging that hole, because Taemin is looking again, only this time he’s pretending he’s not.

He wouldn’t have won either way, but now he’s lost. They all ditch him. Minho and Kibum gloat and Jingi just wants his goddamn chicken. Taemin lingers, half guilty half exultant, makes sure to say goodbye to Jonghyun. And then they’re all gone. Shindong hyung, too, everyone except the staff.

He runs out of things to say in record time, so he talks about Taemin. It’s so late at night, and he’s on the radio and he’s talking to himself, and it puts him in a strange place, makes him honest for the first time all day. They’re probably listening in the car, but he’s not there, so he doesn’t know for sure that they are, so he doesn’t have to take responsibility for what he says. Jonghyun waxes nostalgic. When he says he misses Taemin, it only sounds like a joke.

Manager Hyung offered to come back for him, but Jonghyun takes a taxi home. The light is still on in their bedroom, but he finds Taemin asleep. He’s in his pajamas, hair drying, slumped against his headboard with his chin on his chest and his phone slowly, slowly slipping out of his hand.

Jonghyun rolls Taemin up in his blanket and goes to bed himself, then lies there and listens to Taemin breathe. This is the longest Jonghyun has been alone in weeks, but it feels no different from the times when they’re all together. He’s lonely either way.

He doesn’t know how long Taemin has felt this way. Even if Taemin could open up, instead of leaving Jonghyun to figure out what’s wrong on his own, there would be no way for Jonghyun to fix it. It’s probably his fault.

 

Jonghyun dated a number of people before he dated Taemin. He was in love with some of them, and he thought he was in love with all of them.

As far as he knows, he was Taemin’s first everything. Taemin has been in this life since he was sixteen years old, and he gave up everything for it when he was only thirteen. Sure, in all that time Taemin probably looked at other people, probably had thoughts about other people, and other people definitely had thoughts about him, but no one had ever told him they liked him until Jonghyun did. No one had ever taken him out. No one had ever kissed him. Taemin had never been with anyone.

It made Jonghyun selfish. He let himself think being the first meant he’d be the only one for Taemin. Now that he has to let that go, he’s not sure he did anything right.

He did more for all the others that came before than he ever did for Taemin. He spent money on them, gave them presents, took them nice places, wore couple rings and couple tees, said cheesy things, found time for all of that. With Taemin, he was never the boyfriend. He was just Jonghyun hyung, even when they got off work and he didn’t have to be. Even when they fucked, or went out, or said “I love you.” They hid in plain sight.

He kept bigger secrets and tried harder for everyone else because he never believed them when they said they liked him. Taemin never even had to say it for Jonghyun to believe him. He did, as best he could, but Jonghyun didn’t need to hear it. And now that Taemin has stopped saying it, Jonghyun still knows his feelings.

He doesn’t know why that just makes it worse.

 

“Taemin-ah, wake up, come on, up. Up. Taemin-aaaaaaaah~”

Jonghyun has relived this one scene a thousand times over the last five years. Yanking the blinds open does no good because they never get up in the light, and Taemin always sleeps through Jonghyun’s alarm and never sets his own. Jonghyun is already showered and dressed and Taemin is just waking up. He’s been just waking up for fifteen minutes already.

He leans over him and shakes Taemin’s shoulder until, “Hyung?” comes tumbling out of him, soft and sleepy. He always sounded the same way when Jonghyun kissed him awake.

Jonghyun jerks the blanket right off of him. Taemin goes with it, sliding onto the floor and landing on his butt with a thud and a low cry. Jonghyun’s stomach flips, and he’s already reaching down to take Taemin by the elbow before he realizes what he’s doing. And then Taemin is right there, right in front of him, looking at him again, and Jonghyun has already fucked his day up.

“What time did you get back last night?” Taemin asks around a yawn, reaching up to scratch at his head.

“I don’t know.” Jonghyun hesitates, gets stuck on the sliver of Taemin’s stomach where his shirt is riding up, the dip of his navel. It makes him a little reckless. “Don’t try to wait up for me, Taemin-ah, you never make it. If you fall asleep like that, you’ll just cramp up and then it’ll be my fault.”

He shouldn’t have said it, because Taemin’s expression warps, but Taemin holds that thought until he’s showered, too. And then wanders back into their room with his toothbrush jutting out of his mouth and foam on his lips, just to say, “What about you? Shindong hyung probably regrets letting you take over, you said nothing but weird stuff.”

And then, after he’s spit and come back to search for his phone and wallet, and Jonghyun is still trying to figure out what’s going on, and Taemin is hiding his face, peering through the crack between his bed and the wall to see if they fell through.

“I didn’t know you remembered all that.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know how to take that. “It wasn’t that long ago, Taeminnie.”

He doesn’t think he can say that the eight years between him and the Jonghyun from back then feel like a thousand, or that he wants to let the half year they spent dating mean more than all of that time they had together. Then it hits him, that maybe in a few years he’ll look back at this moment and it’ll look just the same. A time and place in his life he can’t touch. A Taemin he’ll never see again, not like this. He hates that so much, but there’s nothing he can even do about it. It’s already too late, and there are so many things he got wrong.

They have five, ten minutes left before it’s time to go.

One word from Taemin brings him back into the present. “Hyung.”

“What?”

Taemin gets so close to saying something, it’s right there on his face, and Jonghyun can do nothing but wait. But in the end Taemin gives up, stepping around Jonghyun and heading for the door, and that’s it. Jonghyun snaps and goes off script. Holds onto him, takes him by the shoulders and keeps him there.

He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.

He’s finally doing it.

“What?” he says again, trying not to sound as crazy as he feels.

Taemin looks so trapped that Jonghyun knows he should be hating himself, but he can’t take much more of that. If Taemin wants to get away from him, he can try. Jonghyun isn’t sure what he’ll do to stop him, the way he’s feeling, and he might as well hate himself for that, too.

“What show are we doing today, do you know?” Taemin says finally. He’s fighting to smile, but he should know better. Jonghyun has never once asked him to fake it.

“That isn’t what you were going to say,” Jonghyun tells him, absolutely certain.

And then he pulls Taemin in and kisses him.

Taemin stiffens in his arms, cut-off noise against Jonghyun’s lips, and for a heartbeat Jonghyun is terrified he’s just made things worse, he’s doing something wrong, but then Taemin’s fingers curl into his shirt, hanging on, his eyes close and he leans into Jonghyun, and Jonghyun forgets _everything._ Taemin is right there with him. They kiss, wet and hot, open-mouthed and desperate, until Jonghyun’s lungs sear and his head is about to explode. He buries his face in Taemin’s neck, breathing him in, setting his teeth into his skin and telling him nonsense like “Only you,” and “So good, baby,” and then Taemin needs his mouth again, small hands pulling at his hair. 

And it’s like they never broke up, it’s like he hasn’t gone months starved for Taemin’s skin under his hands, so soft and smooth and warm everywhere. They’ve barely done anything and they’re both hard already, and nothing is too much, nothing will be enough until Jonghyun is inside Taemin again, but there’s no time, and they can’t, and.

Jonghyun works his hand down the back of Taemin’s pants and presses his fingertip to Taemin’s entrance, feels it flutter against his touch. Taemin sobs into his mouth, arches back into his hand.

The lube is all the way on the other side of the room, still stashed in the back corner of Jonghyun’s underwear drawer. The room is growing lighter and the door is unlocked and the other three and Manager Hyung are all just down the hall, making morning sounds. This is insane.

It’s insane and it changes nothing, no matter how much they both want it right now. Since the day he gave him up, Jonghyun could have done this to Taemin anytime, and he’d have had him just like this. The things they did to each other in their room were never the problem, it was all the things they couldn’t do outside of it.

Still, Jonghyun kisses Taemin again. And again and again and again.

Somewhere in the middle of all that Jingi walks in.

 

Jingi doesn’t make it into an issue. He’s seen it all before, and Kibum and Minho were the ones that figured it out first and sent him in there, so it’s their fault. Even Taemin can’t stay embarrassed in front of him for long.

It’s a different story for Jonghyun. It takes three whole days of their lives for Taemin to look Jonghyun in the eye again, even with the five of them against the world for fifteen, twenty hours at a time, and then another half a week before Taemin can speak to him normally. Jonghyun has never been able to keep Taemin from hating himself, but he’s never had to work so hard to convince Taemin that _he_ doesn’t hate him before. Part of that is he doesn’t want to try. It makes him so angry he can’t see straight to spell out things that should be obvious to Taemin by now. Taemin just takes and takes, and it’s better that he doesn’t know he’s doing it, because if he did, he’d never be able to ask Jonghyun for the smallest thing ever again. Jonghyun can barely stomach how sorry Taemin is right now.

It’s safer to play hyung than look inside himself. And he wants Taemin back, however much of him he can get. He needs him. He can’t work without him.

 

“It’s not a big deal, Jonghyunnie,” Jingi says. 

It is.

“You never broke it on that part in practice.”

Taemin this time. He always points stuff like that out when he’s trying to talk Jonghyun down. Jonghyun gives him a look and says, “Yes, I know.”

Taemin blinks, takes a minute with Jonghyun’s face, and tries again. “You did it just fine hundreds of time, it was just this once. Next time it won’t happen.”

Counterpoint: if something’s happened once, that means it can happen again. He stepped on his mic stand and broke it during their practice run this morning, and so now every time he does that one part, every show they go on, the possibility will be there. When they go on camera in thirty minutes and do it for real, for example.

He bites his tongue because Taemin doesn’t need to know how badly he’s freaking out. It might make Taemin’s nerves worse, and he never helps, anyway.

“I broke mine on TV weeks ago and you told me not to be embarrassed,” Minho butts in. “You were just saying that, weren’t you?”

“I’m not embarrassed.”

He is. All he did was step on it, and now he’s sent M!Countdown into crisis control and made everyone else’s lives harder, the staff here trying to keep to an already tight schedule, the people at SM rushing a new mic stand over. They might have to switch spots with another group, and Manager Hyung will have to make up the time somewhere. They won’t get lunch again today because of him. And he’s down ten pounds since promotions started, and that’s bad enough, that’s its own problem…but at the same time it’s so unfair that this happened now. He should have broken it one of those practices where they pigged out on jjajangmyun for lunch.

He’s so embarrassed he can’t look any of the others in the face.

They all see right through him, but he insists, “I’m not,” and he’s making it so much worse, he really needs to shut up. He looks so stupid.

“You should be, though?” Kibum says. They all crack up, even Taemin, but he lingers when the rest of them wander away, eyeing Jonghyun like he’s looking for some kind of clue.

Then he smiles like he can’t help it, and Jonghyun is not in the mood when Taemin teases him, “You’re so fat, hyung. Are you sure it’s all muscle?” and pokes at his stomach.

Jonghyun slaps him away. Taemin laughs again, and he rethinks, grabs Taemin’s hand and flattens it against his abs, stares him down. Taemin takes a few seconds too long to catch up, and then he’s wriggling free and shooting Jonghyun secret looks, but Taemin did it to himself. He’s the one that brought it up.

“You haven’t had time to work out in like three weeks,” Taemin says, almost accusingly. And then he circles back, says, “You’ll forget everything when we actually do it, your body will move on its own, you’ll be fine,” and somehow that’s the worst thing he’s tried yet.

When they were dating Jonghyun would try to get Taemin to come to the gym with him, just so they could spend the time together, but Taemin hated it the few times he went, and he always took it the wrong way, thought Jonghyun wanted him to work on his body or something. Jonghyun never got that, and he still doesn’t. It has nothing to do with anything. His head is in a weird place.

“Why do you always think that if something’s easy for you, it’s the same for me?” he finds himself saying, and he hates how twisted up his voice is.

Taemin must hate it too, because he freezes up. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t dance like you.”

Taemin can’t answer right away, and Jonghyun half wants to say it again, half wants to go hide in the bathroom until he’s got himself under control again.

“I didn’t know,” Taemin gets out first, and he could be talking about so many different things it makes Jonghyun crazy. Taemin doesn’t know much. Then, “You’re a good dancer, hyung. Maybe you don’t think so, but I know better.”

That’s not the point. The point is Taemin thinks Jonghyun should be able to do things just the way Taemin does. Jonghyun’s body doesn’t work like that.

Jonghyun doesn’t work like that. It’s so obvious and Taemin will never see it. 

“You’re so fucking useless, Taemin-ah. If you really want to help, stop talking to me.”

 

The new mic stand arrives with five minutes to go, and filming goes fine. No mistakes, no problems, at least none that show up on tape. From the other side his fears look just as stupid to him as they would have looked to anyone else. 

And then Jonghyun spends the afternoon with another kind of humiliation. It creeps in his skin when he looks at Taemin, claws him up inside when Taemin looks at him, and focusing on everything else doesn’t make it go away. It’s still in his head no matter what he does, on the tip of his tongue whenever he says anything to anyone.

Taemin is acting as if nothing happened, like Jonghyun didn’t say anything bad, but that’s what he always does whenever Jonghyun is mean to him. And maybe it really was nothing, maybe Jonghyun didn’t hurt him, but somehow that always makes it worse. Jonghyun shouldn’t have said it, if only because he should have known this feeling would come. He doesn’t know why he gets like this. He just does.

“We’re going to win,” Minho says.

They’re ending their day where it began. Jonghyun thinks it’s a different waiting room from this morning, but it looks just the same.

“We’re going to lose,” Kibum replies quickly, then glowers at Minho when he opens his mouth again. “If you don’t want to hear it, you shut up, too. Stop tempting God.”

The two of them go through this back-and-forth every single time out. Every single time. Jonghyun is only listening to them now because Taemin has finally gone quiet, either given up or run out of things to say to him, and left Jonghyun alone. He doesn’t know what he wanted, but that wasn’t it. Taemin’s stopped trying to get through to him, and so he’s stopped saying all the little everyday things in between too, the stuff neither of them ever thinks about. Maybe Jonghyun just wants to hear his voice.

Minho stews, and in the meantime Kibum works himself up until he’s climbing the walls and fit to explode.

“Aaaaah, whatever. I can’t take much more of this. I think it’s better when we lose all the time.”

Jonghyun gets where he’s coming from a lot better than Minho from the looks of it, but still. “What kind of logic is that? You wouldn’t be saying that if we weren’t doing this well, Kibum-ah.”

Kibum looks ticked, probably because he knows Jonghyun is right. But maybe Jonghyun has misread him, because Kibum doesn’t want an argument, he wants understanding.

“I mean…winning is more responsibility. If we went out there and did our best and lost anyway, our fans would still support us,” he explains slowly, almost like he’s feeling his way. “But when we make top two, then we can’t just think of ourselves and be happy we got this far, we have to think of the fans, too. If we lose now we’re letting them down.”

Jonghyun has had all those thoughts before. Just by existing, you’re taking things away from someone else. But when you’re on your own, all you have to think about is what you want. If you actually get it, if you get lucky, if you succeed at something, if someone you love loves you back…that’s harder. Things that were simple before become complicated, difficult, painful. Every choice you make, every word you say, every thing you do, can bring you a little closer to losing everything. And not making choices, not saying anything, not doing anything, is just as bad. Because if you don’t put yourself out there, you’ve already lost. Because you could end up hurting someone else either way. Your mistake is never just your mistake. Your loss is never just your loss.

And after all that, you’re still just one person. You’re still alone. 

Their careers are like that. Say Shinee wins tonight, then someone else has to lose. And if Shinee loses, everyone who has brought them to this moment loses, too. Jonghyun will probably cry either way, but so will a lot of people whose tears he’ll never see. Fangirls, all the people at SM stressed out over their promotions maybe, maybe one or two of the other members in secret.

Love is like that, too.

Way too quickly, Minho darts in and tousles Kibum’s hair, says, “You sounded pretty smart just now, that’s a first,” and Kibum laughs, retorts, “Aigoo, that means a lot coming from you~” and they both move on, and leave Jonghyun behind.

But Jonghyun isn’t looking at them anymore. It seems to take Taemin so long to notice him, but barely any time passes before he meets Jonghyun’s eyes. 

“What are you going to do if we win, Taemin-ah?” Jonghyun says carefully.

“I don’t know,” Taemin says. He hasn’t thought about it at all, his face gives that much away, but he doesn’t start now, just asks Jonghyun, “What would be good?”

“Aegyo,” Jonghyun says immediately, and when Taemin’s nose doesn’t scrunch up like it’s supposed to, he piles on, “five sets.”

Taemin considers it, considers him. Then without warning he winks and tosses his head and shoots Jonghyun with a finger gun, and Jonghyun doesn’t do anything about it when he realizes he’s got the stupidest smile on his face.

 

They go out there and...

“Shinee!!”

“Dream Girl” pounds out of the sound system. Kibum’s smile shines brighter than Minho’s even, and it means more to Jingi than all of them put together. Taemin keeps his promise, runs out of ideas after his first two poses, then bends his knees and sticks their trophy between them, jutting up at an angle, long and rounded at the tip. Jonghyun isn’t sure what he’s going for, but the first thing that comes to mind is definitely not it. Taemin has done so many dirty things to Jonghyun, but he could never talk about any of it without turning red, even when it was just the two of them.

And Taemin is so cute when he’s happy it steals Jonghyun’s breath, makes him so stupid. And they won, and this morning is finally gone, and Jonghyun should probably stop staring at him at some point. Taemin lets Jonghyun fold down the spiky flaps of his hat, stands there and looks ridiculous, sits on Jonghyun’s shoulders and smiles and smiles and smiles. Jonghyun’s heart bursts.

That’s only three minutes, and then that’s it, they won. Life goes on. They can savor it for the car ride and then they have maybe four hours to sleep if they can, and then they’ll get up and do it all over again. Jonghyun doesn’t want to go back.

He takes Taemin somewhere instead. As soon as they’re in their own clothes again he hustles Taemin straight out to the parking lot, ahead of crush of people that’ll be going home in the next hour. Manager Hyung is still inside with the others, so they can get lost looking for the van.

“I’m sorry about before, Taeminnie,” he says, after wasting too much time coming up with better ways to say it.

“It’s fine, hyung,” Taemin says quickly, and Jonghyun can tell he doesn’t want to hear it. Taemin never accepts his apologies.

“I took my shit out on you. It’s not fine, and I’m sorry.”

“You barely said anything, hyung. You don’t think I can take that much?” Taemin gives him a sidelong glance, kind of smiles, and something about his face lodges in Jonghyun’s chest. “You said one wrong thing. I never say anything right.”

This is the first time they’ve been alone together all day, and Jonghyun can already feel the moment slipping away from him.

“What were you going to say, that time?”

And now it’s out there, and Jonghyun can’t take it back. Whatever Taemin’s answer is, he won’t be able to take it back.

Taemin looks stricken. “You want to talk about that now? It’s been two months, hyung, I thought you—”

“I didn’t mean that day, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun interrupts him faster than he can find words, almost. He didn’t know that would be the first thing Taemin would think of. Maybe being with Jonghyun always makes him think of it. Jonghyun isn’t going back there. “What were you going to say that morning?”

Taemin is confused, he’s not getting it, and Jonghyun is just going to come out and say it. There’s no one around. He wouldn’t care if someone were.

“The morning we kissed,” he says. “What were you going to say?”

Taemin doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look around, check to see if there’s anyone in the world besides them that might have heard, doesn’t shush him, or freak out, or anything. The only person he tries to hide from is Jonghyun. But he can’t pretend he doesn’t remember, and he can’t avoid Jonghyun’s eyes for long, and in the end he can’t keep anything from him.

“Just…you were talking about the past,” Taemin says, like Jonghyun needs reminding, like he doesn’t remember every single detail perfectly. And Jonghyun can tell Taemin’s not sure he should, but still, he goes on. “You feel like forever to me. It feels like we’ve known each other forever.”

And somehow that’s not what Jonghyun was hoping for. It’s so close to everything, and it’s so close to nothing. It hurts.

 

Jonghyun can’t sleep after that. Taemin can’t either, he knows as much because he keeps moving, rustling under his blanket, rearranging himself. Taemin always wakes up exactly where he drifts off. Jonghyun has watched him from beginning to end more times than he can remember. For most of them, he held Taemin in his arms.

“This is stupid.”

Taemin lifts his head to look over at him, eyes half-closed. “What?”

“This is stupid,” Jonghyun says again, and he wants to say it again and again and again, because he can’t get up and go over there and make Taemin understand.

Taemin doesn’t ask what a second time, though. Just shifts onto his side and looks at Jonghyun for so long Jonghyun forgets how to talk, tracing his form under the blanket, trying to read his expression.

“We used to sleep together,” is what comes out of him next. “Before.”

Taemin’s face doesn’t change. He knows what Jonghyun means. Not the times when they were dating, the times when they weren’t. Back when Taemin’s nerves kept him up all night.

“You couldn’t sleep without me there,” he says.

“I know, hyung,” Taemin says, and smiles at Jonghyun, breaks his heart a little. Then he says it again, “Hyung,” and waits until he sees something in Jonghyun that shows he’s listening, some tell Jonghyun doesn’t know about. The smile doesn’t leave his face but he won’t meet Jonghyun’s eyes now, and whatever it is, Jonghyun doesn’t want to know, but. “I hope you find someone who can do that for you. All the stuff you do for me.”

When Jonghyun kissed him that morning, Taemin tasted like strawberries. Now he just tastes bitter.

“Am I supposed to thank you?” Jonghyun snaps, then struggles for control. “Taeminnie, I know how hard it is for you to say things like that…but I’ve never done anything to make you think I want to hear it.” Because he doesn’t. He really, really doesn’t, and Taemin has to know that. If he doesn’t, Jonghyun is allowed to hate him for it. “No matter what, you always say the wrong thing.”

Taemin doesn’t take that too well, turns his back on Jonghyun and doesn’t say anything and doesn’t say anything.

“Don’t get mad at me,” Jonghyun says, too sharp. He wants to tell Taemin that he has no right, but he’s never said anything like that to Taemin before, _you don’t have the right,_ and if he starts now he’ll hate himself forever.

“You never want to hear it,” Taemin replies, too late. Too quiet. “You always say I don’t talk to you. Maybe this is why.”

That’s not fair. That’s not even true. Whatever it was, however little he could understand, however much Taemin left unsaid, Jonghyun has always tried to listen to Taemin. This is the first time Jonghyun’s ever said _anything._

The words are fighting up his throat but somehow he can’t get anything out. Taemin has Jonghyun so wrong, but he never would have said it if he didn’t think it about him. Taemin isn’t like that. He’s left thinking that he knows Taemin better than Taemin knows him, that he loves Taemin more, if that’s really how Taemin sees him. And then he just wants to see what saying it out loud did to Taemin’s face, if it meant anything, if it hurt him at all.

“Taemin-ah.”

Taemin ignores him.

“Taemin-ah.”

Nothing.

“Do you even care what I want?”

His own voice seems to come out of nowhere, but still, Taemin doesn’t move. Jonghyun is this much closer to losing it. If he can’t get Taemin to look at him again, if Taemin won’t look at him, he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“I don’t need you to look after me, that’s not the way this is supposed to work. Maybe you think you know what’s best, but all you’re doing is making things harder on me. You’re not thinking of me at all.” He’s not sure how much of that he’ll regret later but he can’t think. It’s taking everything he has to keep his voice from rising. And then it all comes out. What he tried to keep back. “Whatever you can give me, I’ll take. I don’t want anything from anybody else.”

And then.

“I know you would. That’s why,” Taemin says. His voice is so small it does bad things to Jonghyun.

“Look at me,” he says, trying to be gentle when Taemin’s tearing him apart like this. “Taeminnie, look at me.”

Taemin takes a minute, and then he does. His face says he’s not going to cry, Jonghyun was just being stupid. Then he forgets about that. Even in the dark like this, Taemin is all he wants to look at.

“I love you,” Jonghyun says.

“Hyung,” and Taemin says it all with that one word.

“I love you, I said,” Jonghyun goes on blindly, ignoring him, watching his face instead. “I love you.”

And then it goes wrong. First Taemin’s smile twists. Then his brow draws together, his features tighten, and it gets harder and harder for Jonghyun to meet his eyes.

“I was really happy the first time you said that to me. Just now, too,” Taemin tells him, but he doesn’t sound happy. He sounds like nothing Jonghyun’s ever heard before. “For a long time after you said you liked me, I was so happy. I only thought of myself. And then one time I woke up next to you, and realized you’d never slept. But it was like that every time, wasn’t it?”

Taemin barely even waits for Jonghyun’s answer, he’s probably read it in his face, and when Taemin guesses, “Half the time, at least,” Jonghyun can’t say anything, so he hates himself instead. And then there’s more.

“When you’re hurting, I don’t know what to do. Even if I think I know what’s wrong, I don’t. You don’t want me to see you like that, either.”

“It’s not that, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun begins, but then has nowhere to go, because he’s lying and Taemin knows it. He has to fight his way out of this, say something, anything, get the last word before Taemin does, but his brain has stopped working. He always thought they broke up because the small things added up. He never realized that for Taemin, it was something this big. He never realized it was _him._

“I think we’ve known each other too long. Maybe it’s just the way we met,” Taemin says next, and of all things he’s smiling. It looks like it hurts, and Jonghyun doesn’t want to see it. “I’m not the person you need. I know I’m not, and you know I’m not.”

For the longest time Jonghyun doesn’t even want to respond to that. And then he just can’t find the right answer, the thing that will make Taemin change his mind. And then finally he gives that up.

“Okay, let’s say it’s the way you see it. I don’t let you in, I keep things from you,” he says, and even that much is painful. He moves on as fast as he can. “What about you? Do you think you’re easy to understand? Do you tell me everything? Do you tell me anything at all?” Jonghyun doesn’t wait for an answer, either. He’s sorry, because Taemin already hates himself enough, and now Jonghyun is making it worse, but it’s Taemin that’s making him say this. “The difference is I ask. You just decide things all on your own, and then you don’t listen to anything I say.”

Somehow, the first thing Taemin can think to say to all that is, “I’m fine, hyung,” and Jonghyun doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean. He’s fine, too.

Then Taemin finds more words. “And it’s not that I don’t ask, it’s that I can’t. I don’t even know _how.”_

“How do you know you can’t when you don’t even try,” and it comes out of him so fast Jonghyun can barely keep up, “you don’t try and then you expect me to do everything.”

He wants to take it back right away, but it’s already too late.

Of all the things Jonghyun has never wanted to say to Taemin, that’s one of the worst. _I do everything._ Jonghyun has never had to worry about Taemin hating him. Whatever he says, whatever he does, however badly he fucks up, Taemin will love him just the same, but Jonghyun never asked him to. He doesn’t want to show Taemin the bad things. He doesn’t want to be that person, if it’s Taemin.

If it’s Taemin, Jonghyun thought he didn’t have to be.

“I do try,” Taemin says, cutting through all that. “I’ve tried really, really hard. This is the best I can do, and it’s not enough.” He smiles again, that same sad smile that Jonghyun feels in his chest. His voice is weird when he goes on, “Looks like you know it too, so stop pretending you don’t.”

Taemin doesn’t cry.

He never does, not in front of anyone. Jonghyun wishes he had that kind of control, but he can’t hide everything from Taemin. There are times when he’ll break down and Taemin will try to make it better, when there’s nothing that could, and Taemin can blame him for that if he wants. But he doesn’t even give Jonghyun that much. He never asks for anything.

Jonghyun has never needed him to.

“I’m not listening to you this time.” His voice is shaking but he’s getting the words out, and if he’s saying it then Taemin is hearing it. That’s everything. “I’m not just going to shut up and do what you want, I’m done with that. All these years I’ve spoiled you, and you don’t even know how much.” He can see his words on Taemin’s face now, and he has to make himself look. “You go find someone else if you want to. I’ll just like you by myself.”

It does no good.

It just makes Taemin cry.

Taemin is crying, and he’s all the way over there, and Jonghyun can’t even comfort him in the end, when he’s the one that did it to him.

“I know you still like me,” he says instead. “How am I supposed to ignore you? You don’t even look at anybody else.” And, “I don’t want you to.” And, “I’ll go crazy if you do.”

Taemin can’t talk for a while. It’s only after Jonghyun couldn’t take it anymore and rolled over to face the wall, that he says it.

“I’ll wait for you. You go first.”

The sun comes up while Jonghyun is still trying to find a way back from that.


	2. The Misconceptions of Me

Jonghyun is cranky. He got discharged from the hospital today.

Those two things are making it hard for Taemin to keep himself from smiling, when he hasn’t done it for real in so long it makes his face feel wrong.

“Did they take you off your meds or something?”

Kibum probably thinks that’s funny. It kind of is.

Jonghyun doesn’t agree, though. He frowns at Kibum and snaps, “Should I be happier than you guys? What do you want me to say?” and then, with perfect insincerity, “Aigoo, thank you so much for taking care of everything while I was resting. You suffered because of me.”

Jonghyun wasn’t resting. He got into a car accident, half a week ago now. Taemin remembers nothing about that day, except for the look on Manager Hyung’s face when he told them, struggling not to skip right to the end, Jonghyun’s okay, it’s fine, it was nothing major, on and on and on. He’d like to forget the rest of it as quickly as he can. Jonghyun in the hospital bed, loopy on painkillers and asking for Taemin. Taking Jonghyun for a walk around the grounds the next time, crisp spring air, because he was climbing the walls of his room, pissed off at the entire world. And now here he is, back home.

“Why didn’t you go home?” Kibum says, and for a second Taemin is totally lost, and then it takes him too long to catch up. Kibum doesn’t wait for him, goes on, “Your mom can spoil you, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

And Kibum is probably right, but Taemin doesn’t want Jonghyun to listen to him, doesn’t want to watch his face as Kibum’s words hit him, in case they make sense to him too. He can’t look away. He’s being so selfish right now.

Jonghyun meets his eyes. Then asks, “Did you miss me at all?”

“It was only a few days, there was no time for that. We even visited you,” Minho says.

Jonghyun scoffs, rocks onto his toes and flicks Minho’s forehead. “So you’re saying you didn’t.”

He glances at Taemin again, and Taemin doesn’t know what his face is doing right now, doesn’t know why he comes out with, “I’m going to miss having the bathroom to myself~” but it’s okay once Jonghyun gets his hands on him, too. His face is right there and Taemin can see how hard he’s trying not to smile, too, pinching Taemin’s cheeks and stretching them until Taemin can feel how weird he looks.

Eventually Jingi remembers they got Jonghyun a cake, yesterday after practice, and brings it over from the fridge, dumps it unceremoniously onto the table, five spoons wedged between the fingers of one hand.

Jonghyun forgets Taemin completely and digs in. The last time they visited he’d complained to Taemin that he’d lost weight trying to survive on hospital food, blamed him for not smuggling in real food. He slows down too quickly, though, glares up at them like he’s only just realized none of them are really eating.

“Nobody’s worried about _me_ getting fat,” he says, this close to an accusation. There’s frosting on his lips.

Taemin picks up his spoon and stuffs his mouth. It’s fluffy and too-sweet and the look Jonghyun gives him means too much, and his throat is closing up, but he gets it down. Goes back for more, and then more, until Jonghyun reproaches him, “Leave some for me, Taemin-ah, it’s my cake,” and fends him off, matches him bite-for-bite.

Jingi picks up his spoon too at one point, but at one look from Kibum he puts it down again. Kibum tried that on Taemin just now, too, but he doesn’t gain weight like Jingi, so he gets away with more.

Jonghyun takes pity on Jingi, reminds him, “My birthday is coming up~”

“Yay, I can buy another cake I won’t get to eat,” Jingi replies, and then goes to bed. The rest of them follow suit.

Jonghyun’s already showered, so he says he’ll clean up, tells Taemin to go on. Taemin is out of the bathroom within five minutes, and their room is already dark when he gets there. He has to feel his way to his bed, and then slowly, slowly his eyes adjust and he can make Jonghyun out. Jonghyun had a head start, he’s been staring at Taemin this whole time.

Taemin wishes he didn’t like that as much as he does. He wishes Jonghyun couldn’t see how he’s smiling, either, especially when Taemin gets a better look at the expression on Jonghyun’s face, and he feels his own twist.

“Taemin-ah…you guys are going ahead without me.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Taemin says quickly. “The company hasn’t said anything.”

He doesn’t want to talk about this now.

“My nose got fucked up, I won’t even be able to sing for a while,” Jonghyun goes on, and Taemin hates that he has to listen to him. Just for tonight, he just wants to hate that any of this even happened in peace. Jonghyun isn’t going to let him do that, though, because he never does, because, “You’ll have to do my parts. You can do it, I know you can. You’ll be fine.”

They recorded both chapters of their album a long time ago, and they barely finished promoting with “Dream Girl” when SM hauled them back in and started them on choreography for “Why So Serious.” Now it’s April, and they were supposed to start the next round of promotions next week, but Jonghyun drove into a guardrail and threw everything up in the air.

And that’s the other thing. Thinking of Jonghyun is dangerous, but he never thinks of himself. Someone has to.

“What are you going to do, hyung?” Taemin asks him, fighting to keep his voice normal. When Jonghyun doesn’t reply, just looks at him, Taemin tries again. “You got out today, and you just said you won’t have to work for a while. You’ll have so much time.”

“I don’t know. Nothing?”

He’s so frustrating.

“Our lives are so crazy, there have to be things you want to do that you haven’t been able to,” Taemin presses him.

He regrets it as soon as it’s out of his mouth, and then more and more as Jonghyun’s silence deepens, grows heavy with meaning. Pins Taemin down and sets fire to his nerves.

Then Jonghyun says shortly, “There are. Time isn’t the problem,” and Taemin can’t look at him anymore, because he knows he means _you are._ Jonghyun’s eyes follow him as he turns over, Taemin can still feel them. Then, “You really didn’t miss me?”

Jonghyun won’t let it go. Taemin can’t give him the answer he wants. He wants to tell Jonghyun he’s a shitty driver. He wants to tell him he’s lucky they bought him a cake instead of screaming at him, after he scared them like that. Taemin wants to tell him he loves him.

“Nope,” he says, doing a terrible job at making it sound like a joke.

Silence.

“Are you mad at me or something?”

Jonghyun is being so unfair.

Of course Taemin is mad at him. He’s furious. But he has no right to be, not anymore, so he doesn’t tell Jonghyun, gives in and admits, “I missed you,” instead. 

“It wasn’t my fault,” Jonghyun insists, talking over him, and once he starts up it’s like he can’t stop. “Okay, it was, but these things happen. And I’m fine, since you’ve never asked. The other guy is, too. I just clipped him. Nobody pays attention every second they’re driving, I just got unlucky this time—”

“I said I missed you, so you can shut up, hyung,” Taemin snaps. Then Jonghyun actually does, and he goes five minutes without Jonghyun’s voice before he can’t take it anymore. The only thing he can think to say is, “Go to sleep,” but that’s useless.

It’s enough.

“I can’t, I can’t breathe out my nose,” Jonghyun says immediately. And, “SM sprang for a VIP room, it had a TV and everything. It was nicer than this place.” And, “It turned me into an ahjumma, I’m following like ten kimchi dramas now.”

Taemin listens as best he can, but he has to put everything into keeping himself awake, digging his fingernails into his palms and forcing his eyes open and letting his feet freeze outside his blanket. It doesn’t matter that Taemin doesn’t know if Jonghyun means half the things he comes up with, if he’s saying them just to say them, or if there’s something else he wants Taemin to hear that Taemin isn’t getting. Every once in a while Jonghyun pauses, and Taemin just has to fill in the gap between things. “Really,” and, “Wow,” and, “Aigoo.”

That’s all he has for Jonghyun. It’s the least he can do for him. It’s also the most he ever could.

 

Taemin has been in love with Jonghyun since before he even knew what that meant. 

For a long time, it was just a fact of life. He never had to think about it, because he was never going to say it out loud. Jonghyun fell in and out of love with other people, and gave Taemin everything else, and Taemin was happy with that much. And then out of nowhere Jonghyun said he liked him, and from that day Taemin began again. He forgot everything he thought he knew, just like that. About his own feelings, and about himself. About Jonghyun, too.

It took too long for him to realize he wasn’t learning anything to replace what he’d thrown out. That he didn’t know anything at all. And then all that was left was how much he didn’t know. It started and ended with things about Jonghyun he’d always accepted but never understood. His insomnia, his moods, his nerves, his tears. Taemin knew from experience a lot of the things that could make him cry or ruin his day or keep him up at night, but he could never figure out why, or what he was supposed to do, and Jonghyun always kept him guessing. The closer they got, the harder Taemin tried, the less Taemin could reach him. Eventually he realized that these were parts of Jonghyun Taemin was never meant to see. Jonghyun hated showing them to him. 

They’re things Jonghyun has to show someone. If not Taemin, then someone else. Someone who won’t need Jonghyun to do everything. Someone who will know how to talk to him. Someone who will know his feelings without him saying anything.

Because Jonghyun isn’t the problem. Taemin is.

He’s still looking for a way to make Jonghyun understand that. For the longest time he was too dumb to realize he needed to say it at all. Once Jonghyun agreed to break up, he never touched Taemin, never said anything, treated him the way he always had before. But he was just doing what he thought Taemin wanted, and that’s the only thing that’s changed now. A couple weeks ago Jonghyun kissed him, and Taemin would have let him do anything. He’d wanted to give Jonghyun everything he could, lie to himself, let that be enough. He scares himself most of all.

But Jonghyun needs someone right now. Taemin is the only one there. Whatever it does to them both, Taemin can’t turn away from him. That would be worse.

 

Promotions get pushed back two weeks, and the company hands Jonghyun’s parts to Taemin.

Jonghyun was right. He always is.

It doesn’t make him any happier than Taemin, though. And he doesn’t have to, but he takes responsibility, drags himself in to work to go over all his lines with Taemin. Taemin wishes he hadn’t. He wishes he could shred his vocal cords trying to reach Jonghyun’s high notes on his own, where Jonghyun can’t hear him. He knows that’s stupid, because he’s going to record everything for the music video and the MR, and then go on all the music shows and attempt to do it live, because Shinee does not lip sync. If they can help it at all.

If he still sounds this bad, he won’t have a choice. They’ll turn his microphone off.

“Again,” Jonghyun says. When Taemin’s voice breaks, when he goes off key, when he gets so frustrated he cuts himself off, “Again.”

When Taemin debuted he was only thirteen, and his voice was undeveloped still. He couldn’t sing at all. It took a long time for the company to see something in him beyond dancing and noona killing, but Jonghyun believed in him from the beginning. He’s the reason Taemin’s technique has come this far, and he’s the reason Taemin has a future in this industry. Taemin never even had to find the words to ask for his help, or the words to thank him. He’s tried to do both, but Jonghyun has always been there for Taemin no matter what Taemin himself has said or done. 

He’s here right now. Taemin never asked him to be.

It gets to the point where Taemin stops hating “Why So Serious” and starts hating Jonghyun instead. For putting him through all this, for going through it himself after all the things Taemin has done to him.

Eventually Jonghyun says, “Don’t get mad at me,” instead, and makes it so much worse.

“I’m not,” Taemin lies.

Jonghyun’s expression doesn’t change. “You’re frustrated.”

Taemin doesn’t want to hear it.

“This isn’t easy for me.”

He’s not sure he should have said that much, because Jonghyun might take it the wrong way, might think Taemin is blaming him. He can’t take it back, so he restarts the backing track and takes refuge in his headphones.

Jonghyun’s mouth tightens, and before Taemin knows what’s going on he’s stood up and pushed them off his ears and down around his neck. The song goes on, bursts into the chorus tinnily, and all of the sudden Jonghyun is right there, holding Taemin’s face in his hands and burning him up inside.

“You don’t have to be here,” Taemin blurts out, before Jonghyun can say anything. “I could have done this with an instructor, you didn’t have to come in today.”

“You’re right, I didn’t,” Jonghyun huffs, and of all things he’s pouting. Taemin really can’t handle him. “I came in just for you, and I’ve listened to you do the same thing five hundred times already. My head hurts, my whole body hurts. Try to be grateful, mm?”

He tweaks Taemin’s nose and lets him go, returns to the chair in the corner and leaves Taemin dizzy.

“Again.”

In the meantime Taemin’s headphones have gone silent. He takes ahold of them, and it should be so easy to slip them back on, suck it up and try again if that means shutting Jonghyun out, but somehow that’s as far as he gets.

“Thank you, hyung,” he tries.

But that’s not it either, Jonghyun’s face tells Taemin that much. He got it wrong again.

“I haven’t tried singing yet,” Jonghyun says. “Should I give it a shot now? You think you sound bad, but you haven’t heard anything yet.”

He’s exaggerating. So he’s having a hard time controlling his breathing right now. So his head voice might come out a little nasal. Or maybe not, maybe falsetto is the best he can do. It’s all temporary. Once Jonghyun recovers, as soon as he gets serious about it again, everything will right where he left it before his accident, and he’ll go back to being a better vocalist than Taemin could ever hope to be.

Taemin doesn’t think he’d want to hear any of that if he were Jonghyun right now. But he has to say something. Anything.

“Hyung…when’s the last time you went to a noraebang?”

The last time Taemin went was with Jonghyun and the other three, years and years ago, just to do their own songs. Jonghyun used to go without him all the time, though, before they debuted. He’d pass the night buying himself more time, then go broke getting Taemin kimbap at practice the next day. He probably kept going after they debuted, too, with his school friends, one of his girlfriends maybe. They never went when they were dating. And they had no time, but Taemin didn’t even think about it until now.

Jonghyun has probably never thought about it. He never does. If he were off somewhere rattling tambourines and stumbling through old Boohwal hits right now, instead of here in the vocal room, here at work, here with “Why So Serious” and Taemin…Jonghyun probably wouldn’t stress out about how he sounds. He could get it all out.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Jonghyun says, giving him a funny look. Then, “Taemin-ah.” Then, to his knees, “They want me to get my nose fixed. The day after my birthday, I have to go back to the hospital.”

Taemin should check with Manager Hyung first. Even if there’s no schedule, there’ll be practice. There’s always something.

He says, “I’ll take you.”

Jonghyun’s eyes shoot up to his face. Jonghyun’s surprise is so obvious that it doesn’t even matter how gently he tells Taemin, “It’s okay, you’ll be busy, it’s not major, it’s not even overnight,” or that he’s smiling when he says it, or that he keeps sneaking secret glances at Taemin for the rest of the afternoon.

Taemin hates himself all the same.

 

At some point Jonghyun steals Taemin’s headphones and takes a turn, and after that they trade off. By the time they get back to the dorm, Jonghyun’s voice is as worn out as Taemin’s. Taemin should probably have kicked him out when he stopped even trying to get it right and started trying to make Jonghyun smile instead, stupid faces and even stupider voices. Somewhere in the middle of all that, though, they made progress. Taemin’s last take was his best.

Jonghyun goes to take a shower almost as soon as they get in the door, and Taemin makes honey water for them both. Kibum isn’t around, so Taemin can’t cheat, ask him for help. It’s two ingredients and there’s no way to fuck up, and it’ll be gross no matter what, but when Jonghyun takes a sip and doesn’t react at all, doesn’t make a face, he’s sure he’s found a way.

He should have tasted it first himself. It’s so hot it burns his tongue, and then it’s so thick he has to fight to swallow. Jonghyun thumps Taemin’s back as he chokes it down, laughing at him.

It’s not funny.

As soon as he’s able, Taemin gets to his feet and leans over the table to take Jonghyun’s glass away, but Jonghyun gets there first, snatches it against his chest and shoots Taemin a look like he was trying to steal it.

Taemin tries to ignore how hot his face has gotten. “You can’t drink that, hyung, I’ll make it again.”

“Give it time to cool, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun says, and all that does is make Taemin feel dumber.

Still, he sits back down. They wait. Time passes, and Jonghyun doesn’t talk, so Taemin thinks. He thinks about the Jonghyun from this afternoon, and he thinks about the Jonghyun from that day at the hospital. He remembers the Jonghyun he spent years saying goodbye to in front of his apartment door.

None of that has anything to do with the Jonghyun in front of him right now, hair dripping onto his T-shirt, dark circles under his eyes, tipping back in his chair with one leg folded under him. Taemin can’t figure him out, and he comes home to him every night.

“What color are you going to dye your hair this time?” Jonghyun asks him suddenly.

Taemin always lets people at the company figure that out. He shrugs, then says without thinking, “You?”

“It’s my turn to be blond,” Jonghyun says promptly, and Taemin can breathe again.

“You’ll have to fight Kibum hyung for it, he said the same thing the other day,” he tells Jonghyun. 

Jonghyun’s face sours a little, and then all of the sudden Taemin’s got the biggest smile on his face. Jonghyun makes him crazy, but it’s okay, he’s used to it.

Jonghyun gets over it in no time, says, “If it’s just two of us, it should be okay,” but Taemin isn’t ready to go back to the part where he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“I don’t know, I think I look better blond than either of you~”

“No you don’t,” Jonghyun retorts, and then, like he has to say something else to fix that, like it doesn’t have to mean anything, “You don’t need to change, brown hair suits you best.”

And Jonghyun can say that much, and Taemin’s stomach can squirm, and he can smile through it. “That’s what you always say, no matter what the coordi noonas do to me. I guess you think everything suits me~”

Too far.

It knocks a breathless laugh out of Jonghyun, and then Jonghyun’s eyes darken, his mouth curls, the air changes and the look he gives Taemin is like a touch. And the only thing Taemin can think is he shouldn’t be doing this to Jonghyun.

Everything Taemin does is too much or too little, and it all hurts.

Taemin decides it’s been long enough, glugs his honey water and makes as if to stand. Before he can, Jonghyun says, rough-voiced, “That’s your fault, you get cuter every time I look at you,” and while Taemin is busy trying to process that, his foot brushes Taemin’s under the table. Then slides up his leg.

And Taemin can’t help it. He reacts. As soon as he can move again he gets out, but not before Jonghyun’s seen everything. Taemin stays in the shower until his fingers prune and the moment finally leaves him, and then faces the wall and tries to sleep.

Jonghyun shouldn’t be doing this to him, either.

 

“It doesn’t have to be you, Taemin-ah.”

Taemin hates Minho and Jingi right now. It’s Jonghyun’s birthday and they cut out of practice early, went off to buy the cake on their own. He hates Kibum even more. He’s the reason Taemin is sitting on the roof and letting his sweat cool, instead of helping the other two pick the tallest, fluffiest, most calorific waste of money they can find. Kibum thinks it’s the other way around, thinks he’s babysitting Taemin. He bought Taemin pepero sticks out of the vending machine and took him up here, and then ambushed him. Taemin never would have come if he had known Kibum wanted to talk.

He’s the only one that’s ever said anything about Jonghyun to Taemin. Minho thinks he knows everything and Jingi only knows how to listen.

“I mean…let’s pretend for a second that Jonghyun hyung can’t take care of himself. Is he alone in the world? Sure, you’re his favorite, but he has the rest of us. He has family. He has friends. He doesn’t need you looking after him.”

Taemin told Jonghyun the same thing a month ago. _It doesn’t have to be me. There will be someone better._ Jonghyun didn’t take it well then, and Taemin’s not going to think about why he’s taking it so badly himself, now that Kibum is saying it to him.

Just another thing Taemin should never have said out loud. One of these days he’s going to have to take a long hard look inside himself, decide whether the problem is that nothing comes out right, or if there’s something wrong with the way he thinks.

Not today. Today he’s just going to keep his mouth shut. He breathes fresh air and stares into the dying sunlight, sees spots before Kibum finally gives up on him.

“It’s your life, Taeminnie.”

And that’s so annoying Taemin forgets himself. Snaps, “Did you take me up here just to scold me?”

“That’s the other thing,” Kibum replies, unfazed. Like that’s not all he’s done so far, like Taemin’s just reminded him he should. “You’re not doing it for him. I don’t know if you think you are, but you’re not.”

Kibum was the first person to find Taemin out. Jonghyun was probably too close to Taemin to realize, even when his own feelings changed, but Kibum has known Taemin’s heart almost as long as Taemin himself. He never said a thing until Taemin went and broke it, and now that it’s no use, he won’t leave Taemin alone.

“I know, I’m selfish,” Taemin says, and he’s surprised how much it costs him to admit it.

“You’re just confusing him, and hurting yourself.”

“I know, I said.”

Kibum continues like he hasn’t heard him, “You two don’t get to stay like this forever. You don’t get to do that to the rest of us,” and the more gentle his voice gets, the less Taemin wants to hear it. It would be better if he lost his patience.

“I like him,” is the only answer Taemin has for him right now. “I don’t mean to hold him back, I’m okay if he moves on, but I just. It’s been so long for me. I like him. I can’t just stop,” and then there’s one more thing, what he really wants to say, “There’s nothing I _can_ do for him. I’d have to understand him first.”

He thinks he should just get up, leave it there, but somehow he can’t do it. Kibum has to let it go first, or they’ll just come back to this moment the next time it’s just the two of them. Going through this once is enough.

Kibum confuses him instead, comes at it sideways, says, “You know what netizens are saying about Jonghyun hyung’s accident? Either he wants a nose job, or he’s trying to avoid active duty when he enlists. He did it on purpose.”

Taemin’s stomach turns over. There’s no way Jonghyun hasn’t read all that stuff himself.

“That’s crazy.”

There’s nothing else to say, he doesn’t know what Kibum wants from him, but maybe that was it, because Kibum catches his eyes, holds them, and his face is telling Taemin this is important.

“That’s how everything looks, from the outside in,” Kibum says. “Everything. His accident seems crazy to them. You think they’re the crazy ones. You look crazy to me right now. Jonghyun hyung probably looks crazy to you all the time.” Taemin thinks there are different degrees, that these are all different things maybe, but then Kibum says it. “If you try to understand something you make it into a problem. It just makes you crazy.”

That’s all. Kibum eats the rest of the pepero sticks and Taemin just sits and doesn’t think. The light fades and the trees sigh and clouds gather, and it looks like rain. When it’s time to go, Taemin just doesn’t. He tells Kibum that he’s going to stay a little longer, practice some more, then spends Jonghyun’s birthday alone in the vocal room, going over Jonghyun’s lines.

 

When Taemin finally gets back, Jonghyun wants tteokbokki. Taemin wants to get drunk, so it works out.

They walk half a mile in the rain. Jonghyun brings a single umbrella, and that’s so obvious Taemin shouldn’t be letting him get away with it. He didn’t even think to grab one himself, so maybe it’s his fault. His hair is already wet from his shower, and he doesn’t catch cold easily, and his legs are longer than Jonghyun’s. The only problem is he doesn’t know where they’re going.

Jonghyun is so warm against his side. His voice is right in his ear. His arm around Taemin’s shoulders and his fingers curled into Taemin’s sleeve touch a place inside Taemin only Jonghyun has ever been able to reach. He can’t hate it, and he doesn’t want to learn to forget it, either.

He has to. He’s the one who said to break up. Everything he’s doing to himself, he’s done to Jonghyun. The way things are going, he’ll just keep hurting him more and more.

“Don’t ignore me,” Jonghyun says.

Taemin wants to ask Jonghyun if he missed the part where Taemin can’t, but Jonghyun’s eyes are narrowed and his mouth is bitten down to nothing and Taemin knows that look. Talking back would do no good.

He’s not even sure he can talk. He drinks instead.

“You should be nice to me, it’s my birthday,” Jonghyun says. And then, like it’s the same thing at all, “I spoiled you for yours.”

That was last summer. They fucked all day, and Jonghyun wouldn’t let him come until Taemin told him how he wanted it.

“Then again, you never remember, it’s like this every time,” Jonghyun goes on, like he didn’t just turn Taemin inside out, “You always say you’re giving me your heart, and I’m supposed to thank you for not spending your money on me.” He pauses, and Taemin’s not sure if he’s hesitating because he wants to say it so badly, or if he doesn’t want to say it at all, but that never matters. And sure enough, “You can say it again this time. I’ll take it.”

Taemin doesn’t say anything, just listens to the rain and watches Jonghyun eat his feelings for a while. He wishes they could both skip to the end. The next person Jonghyun dates will take him away from all this. The next time Jonghyun’s birthday comes it’ll be nice out. He won’t be at a food stall at two in the morning.

“Slow down, Taeminnie, I still have to get you home,” Jonghyun says sharply. And then he shoves his food between them, doesn’t add, “Here, have some,” until after he’s stuffed a rice cake into Taemin’s mouth, hand so big and firm on the back of Taemin’s head.

Taemin is on his third bottle and Kibum's pepero sticks are all he has in his stomach. It won’t do any good to start eating now. Still, it’s Jonghyun feeding him.

The night slows to a drip.

He thinks Jonghyun is staring at him again. He can’t see from down here, but it’s a safe guess.

“Will you still like me if my nose looks weird after tomorrow?” Jonghyun asks him.

Would Taemin hate him, then? Jonghyun doesn’t ask stupid questions, he shouldn’t start now.

“Taemin-ah…you’re drunk, you don’t have to remember if you don’t want to. Just say it.”

Jonghyun isn’t drunk. Jonghyun will remember.

Taemin knows he shouldn’t, but he gets his head up. Lets himself look at Jonghyun. Right away he wants to kiss him.

“Aigoo, you know how good you look,” is what he goes for. Jonghyun makes his confused face, so Taemin reaches over and smushes his cheeks between his hands. Doesn’t help. And then Taemin thinks he might be falling, but Jonghyun is there, so he doesn’t. He’s back in his chair, he’s okay.

And then he remembers Jonghyun is waiting.

Jonghyun thinks he forgot, maybe. He says Taemin’s name. That’s all it takes. That’s all it ever takes.

“Taemin-ah.”

“I like you,” Taemin says.

That’s not it.

Jonghyun lays his head down on the table too, so they’re face-to-face. Gets a good look at Taemin. Taemin takes advantage, looks back. Looks and looks. Jonghyun is so beautiful Taemin can’t breathe.

“I like it better when you like yourself.” He fights hard to get the words right. Because they’re all right there, on Jonghyun’s face. He knows he won’t find them again. He’ll go his whole life looking for them inside himself instead. “I still like you when you don’t.”

And then it’s on to bottle four.

“Jonghyun hyung.”

“What?”

“Jonghyun hyung.”

“What, I said.”

“Jonghyun hyung.”

And then nothing. Black out.

 

Taemin has never thought that Jonghyun is the same as him inside.

The year they met, Taemin knew Jonghyun by sight and by the sound of his voice. That was it. The only reason they ever got closer was because Jonghyun tried. He talked to Taemin when Taemin couldn’t talk to him, told him things when Taemin couldn’t tell him anything, asked questions and then waited until Taemin could answer them. Taemin will never know what Jonghyun saw in him.

Now, Taemin looks at Jonghyun and sees his whole world. Jonghyun probably looks at him and sees the same. That doesn’t only mean the good things, though. They both chose this life, and they never would have met if they hadn’t, and they never would have been together like this, but it’s harder on Jonghyun than it is on Taemin. When he was dating Taemin, he never got out. Taemin couldn’t give him that. They lived most of their lives as Shinee’s Jonghyun and Shinee’s Taemin, and then came home to the dorm and talked about their day. If they talked at all. If they could keep their hands off each other. If Taemin didn’t fall asleep on him.

Taemin is only realizing how things must have been for Jonghyun now that his own nights have gotten so long. They used to seem so short.

Because Taemin doesn’t need to talk, and he doesn’t need out, not like Jonghyun does. The outside world, other people, the way he’s supposed to live and the things that are supposed to make him happy, all that just makes him feel trapped. He has dancing, he has music, and he has the all the extreme sports he’s going to try if he ever has the time. And above all, he has their room and he has Jonghyun.

But their room and Taemin aren’t the same for Jonghyun. For him, just being there isn’t enough. Looking inward isn’t escape, when he’s already trapped in his own body, his own life, his own thoughts. He needs someone else to let him out.

All Taemin has ever needed is him.

 

With “Dream Girl” it was like they couldn’t lose. With “Why So Serious” it’s like they can’t win. This is the first time they’ve even made it to the encore, and Jingi didn’t bother practicing his thank you speech.

They’re all just trying to get through it.

“It’s the song,” Kibum says in the car. “I don’t even know how it’s possible at this point, but I hate it more every time we do it.”

Minho doesn’t agree, because he never does. “It just wasn’t our day.”

“Aigoo. I guess we’ve had nothing but bad days since April,” Kibum retorts, but his heart isn’t in it, and there’s a first time for everything, because Minho lets it go.

Every time out they do their best, knowing full well it won’t get them anywhere. Today, too. Promotions were doomed before they even started, and at this point they’re at the end of their rope. It’s not even funny anymore, talking about Jonghyun behind his back and reminiscing about all the times he embarrassed himself in the past. The time he fell asleep on his feet in the middle of filming “Sherlock.” The time he ripped his pants doing “Lucifer” and didn’t even notice until they finally gave it away, laughing at him. How he never cried that much when they lost, but turned into a faucet when they won.

Manager Hyung asks them if they want to pick up food, if they’re hungry for something. He gets just as little sleep and works just as hard as they do every day, and he never even gets the chance to win anything. They’ll be fine, there’s stuff at home.

There’s Jonghyun, too, Harry Potter glasses and hair bleached almost white.

He barely lets them get in the door before he’s saying, “I watched you guys just now,” and none of them really want to hear it, but he doesn’t seem to care. “I voted for you but nobody else did. Jonghyun oppa wasn’t there~”

“Yeah right. Minho oppa is more popular these days, right Taeminnie~?” Minho says, and Taemin is tired, he just wants to be left out of it, but if there’s a joke he’s always the butt of it.

“I blame Jingi hyung. As soon as he screams at the beginning people stop buying it,” Kibum cuts in quickly. “You’re too cute, hyung. It’s just not you.”

And Kibum is just trying to help in case this goes somewhere weird, but Jingi doesn’t get the memo. Just makes a face, says, “Yes, it’s all my fault, I’ll take responsibility,” and leaves Kibum hanging, shuffles off to make himself ramyun. Taemin is okay, anyway, he’s just going to bed.

Jonghyun catches Taemin’s arm on his way out of the room, holding him back. “Taeminnie, who’s your bias?”

That’s easy. “Taemin.”

Jonghyun looks so betrayed Taemin’s embarrassed for him. And then he opens his mouth again and makes it worse, says, “That’s not what you said before, you told me you liked Jonghyun.”

Taemin remembers everything, including the part where Jonghyun said he didn’t have to, but it figures Jonghyun won’t let him forget. He can’t deal with this right now, but they’re just joking around, it’s all a joke, so, “Who’s that again?”

Jonghyun laughs, but when he replies, “You would know, Taemin stole all his lines,” it’s awkward and weird and not funny to either of them, and they both know it.

And it’s not funny, but it’s not like it’s that bad. If Jonghyun’s followed him into their room to apologize, Taemin doesn’t want to hear it. He really doesn’t.

“I was being stupid,” Jonghyun says.

“I know.”

Jonghyun hesitates, then says something even stupider. “Taemin is my bias. I like him better than Jonghyun, too~”

“Oh my God, hyung,” Taemin says, and faceplants into his pillow. He’ll shower in the morning. Right now it’s too much effort to get his blanket out from under his body, even.

“I was bored all day,” Jonghyun’s voice tells him, and if he tries to fix it one more time Taemin doesn’t know what he’ll do to him. But, sure enough, “You looked cool, you did a good job.”

And somehow that’s the worst thing he’s said yet. Taemin wishes he would shut up and get the light, go to bed himself. Instead the mattress dips and Jonghyun’s hand closes round his shoulder, warm and insistent, turning him over. It’d probably be easier to just do what Jonghyun wants, look up into his face and show him there’s nothing to see here, but instead Taemin flops his pillow over his face and stares into the red of his eyelids.

“I don’t need you to say that. I know I did fine.”

“Look at me,” Jonghyun says. He’s not going to stop.

Taemin looks at him, and he doesn’t know why his throat is tightening up on him now, but he’s just going to ignore it because, “I’m fine, hyung.”

“It’s okay if you’re not, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun says quietly. “It’s just me.”

He’s not going to stop and he’s not going to listen, either.

“It’s just stress, it’s just getting to me right now,” Taemin says, this close to pleading. “You know how it is. Leave me alone and it’ll go away on its own.”

And then he’s done. He turns over to face the wall and shrugs Jonghyun off when he reaches for his shoulder again. For a minute Jonghyun gives him nothing, exactly what he wants, and then the bed creaks again and Jonghyun scoots up behind him, arm coming around his middle, body bracketing Taemin’s, breath light and hot against his neck. Taemin doesn’t freeze or fight him off. Just lets him do it, and struggles to keep everything inside. The longer Jonghyun takes to say something, anything, the harder it gets.

“You told me I don’t need you,” Jonghyun says, because apparently this is the day where Jonghyun throws all the stupid things Taemin’s said back in his face. “Are you sure it’s not the other way around?”

If that’s what Jonghyun thinks, he hasn’t been paying attention for the last eight years.

But that’s not all. “You always try to do everything on your own,” and Taemin really can’t handle this one, “You never let me do anything for you.”

“There’s nothing you can do, hyung. You can’t drive, so now the rest of us can’t win.”

It just shoots out of him, the kind of thing he’s spent all day trying not to say to the others, and the silence that follows in its wake squeezes in on Taemin. Jonghyun doesn’t even react, doesn’t go tense, doesn’t say anything, and Taemin can’t take it anymore. He wrenches away from Jonghyun, shoves himself upright, stares down at him, makes himself see what he did to Jonghyun now.

Nothing, by the looks of it. Taemin wants to apologize so badly but he can’t make himself do it. He wants to get out of here even more.

Jonghyun sits up too, laying his knee over Taemin’s and catching his eyes, holding them. “You can yell at me, if it helps. I can take that much.”

“Why don’t you hate me?”

“What?” Jonghyun says, furrowed brow, narrowed eyes, and just like that Taemin can’t look at him again.

“Why don’t you hate me, hyung?” It’s easier, getting it out a second time, but that’s not enough. Jonghyun will be able to ignore him, if that’s all. “After everything, you should. You have to know you should. And I keep hurting you, and all I do is make it worse, but you still don’t hate me.” Taemin stops breathing before the words stop coming. “That’s harder on me. If you don’t, I have to hate myself more.”

Almost before Taemin’s finished Jonghyun’s hands are there, holding Taemin’s face and bringing his chin up. They’re so gentle and warm Taemin’s heart hurts, and when he raises his eyes to Jonghyun’s face, it might break a little.

“You broke up with me all on your own, and now you’re telling me how I’m supposed to feel about it,” Jonghyun says, and then his mouth crooks. “I said you could yell at me, not push me around.”

Taemin knows that smile. It’s the one Jonghyun used to give to him those rare times where he couldn’t just let Taemin have his way. All it usually meant was that Taemin had to pay with his body. Aegyo when they were younger, blowjobs when they were dating. Jonghyun was always easy like that. And now that there’s nothing Taemin can answer him with, nothing he can give him, Jonghyun is impossible.

He doesn’t wait for Taemin to catch up, either.

“We’ve been through everything together. Do you even know what it’d do to me, if I tried to hate you?” 

Taemin looks at him and thinks, _If you liked yourself more you’d like me less._ And he thinks, _I’m sorry I got scared. I’m sorry I gave up first. I’m sorry I left you alone. I’m sorry I did things that could make you hate me._

Jonghyun studies him, intent and silent, probably trying to see if his words got through. Taemin will let him decide if they did. He slides his fingers through Taemin’s hair, strokes his face, and Taemin barely catches himself leaning into it, before Jonghyun pinches his cheeks and lets him go.

And then he turns the question around, asks Taemin, “Could you ever hate me?”

And Taemin doesn’t know why he even needs an answer, why he’s even asking. “What have you ever done that was this bad?”

Jonghyun’s expression warps, little by little, and by the time Taemin knows where he’s gone, it’s too late. Taemin wants to go after him but he can’t. He has to stay out here, looking in. He wants to hold Jonghyun, make stupid faces until he has to smile for real, get rid of the thing on his face. He wants Jonghyun to tell him he’s okay, that Taemin has him wrong again. Taemin is terrified.

“I never did anything good, either,” Jonghyun says finally, and it’s like he can hardly speak. “I couldn’t make you happy.”

Oh. That’s all. Taemin was busy writing a tragedy, but if that’s all.

“Hyung, you dated me, you didn’t live my life for me,” Taemin says, trying so hard to be gentle, to be patient, because if he makes Jonghyun cry now he really will have to hate himself. “My happiness is my business. I was happy you liked me, and the rest was my problem.” And then suddenly it catches up with him, how they’re talking about it, how he never thought they’d talk about it, how much he’s kept inside and never said. And it gets harder for him, too. “What about you, did I make you happy? I couldn’t do anything for you, when you’ve done everything for me.”

That’s as far as they get before Jonghyun scrubs his hands over his face, hunches in on himself, and hides for a while. Taemin tries petting his hair and Jonghyun doesn’t flinch away, so Taemin figures it’s okay. When Jonghyun emerges his cheeks are shining and his eyes are a little red and he’s back to normal. And then he gives Taemin a smile, small and secret, and Taemin has never seen anything so beautiful in his whole life.

“Do you think I’m happy without you?” Jonghyun says, then pushes his foot against Taemin’s shin. “I’m not happy right now, Taeminnie. Do something about it.”

Taemin presses his fingers into the corners of Jonghyun’s mouth, tugs them into something that’s supposed to be a grin, but when he goes to fold Jonghyun’s lips over his gums, Jonghyun snaps at his fingers, pushes Taemin’s forehead and nearly sends him tumbling back onto the bed. He doesn’t laugh, though, so it’s no good.

“Your hair looks cool,” Taemin tells him.

“I know it does,” Jonghyun says, so smugly Taemin thinks he should have added that his glasses don’t.

“You look cooler than Kibum hyung.”

“I know.”

Taemin gives up on words. He smiles at Jonghyun instead, until Jonghyun can’t help himself. Smiles back.

 

When Taemin wakes up he meets Jonghyun’s eyes.

It’s still dark out, and the clock over Jonghyun’s shoulder says it’s five thirty. They still have some time. Ten, fifteen minutes before Taemin has to get up.

Taemin has been here a million times over the years. Jonghyun’s arm under his head, his breath tickling Taemin’s face. Jonghyun, silent and still, just watching him, not waiting for Taemin to do anything, say anything.

Taemin never thought he’d be able to go back, and now that he has, he never wants to leave.

Minutes tick by. The sun rises outside and peeks in through their blinds.

Taemin doesn’t know how long Jonghyun has been lying here alone, but he does know Jonghyun fell asleep last night. Taemin watched him until he did. He doesn’t think he was too obvious, at least he tried not to be, squinting through his eyelashes, but Jonghyun probably felt his look. Still, it didn’t keep him up. Maybe Taemin didn’t bother him at all. Maybe he helped, a little. The only thing Taemin knows for sure and the only thing he cares about is that Jonghyun slept.

He slept and he’s here now, and Taemin loves him.

Time.

Taemin lifts Jonghyun’s arm off him and climbs over him, rolling him onto his back. For one second he has Jonghyun’s waist between his legs and his dark eyes staring up at him, and then he’s up, out of bed. When he comes back from the shower for his wallet and phone, Jonghyun is right where he left him. With his contacts in Taemin can see everything. Jonghyun’s bed hair. The lazy sprawl of his body underneath Taemin’s blanket. The look on his face.

Taemin knows what happens next. He crosses the room and leaves his things on the nightstand, sinks down onto his bed, and leans down and presses his mouth to Jonghyun’s.

That’s as far as he thought ahead, and now his brain has stopped working. Jonghyun’s lips are so soft and he makes this noise, low and kind of sleepy, kind of tortured, and then he’s got his hands in Taemin’s hair and his tongue in Taemin’s mouth, and Taemin is just trying to keep up. And then he’s just trying to breathe, burying his head into the pillow next to Jonghyun and nosing into his hair, taking the tip of his ear between his teeth and pressing his tongue to it. Jonghyun gasps, and then his hand finds Taemin’s ass, and he tells Taemin, “I’ve been hard all morning,” and Taemin has to kiss him again just to shut him up.

Eventually Taemin has to accept reality. It’s almost six o’clock and he has maybe five minutes before Manager Hyung is pounding on the door, if the other two don’t just send Jingi in here ahead of him again. He can’t kiss Jonghyun again. He can’t climb on top of him. He really, really can’t slide a hand into Jonghyun’s pants and take him into his hand. He can’t make him come.

Later.

“Go back to sleep, hyung,” he says instead, because of all the things going through his head right now it’s the only one that’s safe. They don’t have time now to talk about the rest of it, and Taemin needs to think anyway. 

Jonghyun groans, hands slipping out of Taemin’s shirt to cover his eyes. That’s probably not what he wanted to hear, but still, Taemin made him smile.

“I’ll nap this afternoon,” Jonghyun tells him, like he’s trying to compromise. Then he fumbles for Taemin’s hand, and Taemin lets him lace their fingers together. “Think of me today.”

And that’s a given. Taemin always does. It’s like breathing.

He says it anyway.

“I will.”

 

Taemin doesn’t realize anyone was talking to him until both Kibum and Minho give him the same look.

“What do you think, Taeminnie?”

About what, Taemin doesn’t know. Kibum figures that out first, and skips making fun of him to repeat it, because he doesn’t have the patience to do both.

“Do you think we’ll lose today? Yes or no?”

They’re still a half hour away from filming their routine, so how would Taemin know. When he points that out, though, they both think he’s useless, for different reasons they’re each happy to share with him.

“The way I see it, our best songs take us to the top. If we go out there, do everything right, and we still can’t win, then fine,” Kibum says. “There’s nothing wrong with us, there’s something wrong with what we’re doing. Right?”

Before Taemin can answer, Minho cuts in, says, “And the way _I_ see it, it’s not that simple. The world doesn’t care if you’ve done your best. It doesn’t care what you do, that’s not how it works.”

“You’re the last person who should say the world is a cruel place. Look how far your face has gotten you, Minho-yah,” Kibum says. Minho does nothing to make him feel bad for it, but Kibum’s mouth goes tight, the way it does when he’s embarrassed, and then he changes tack, says, “It’s totally out of character, right, Taeminnie?”

Taemin is pretty sure they don’t need him for this, but he’s spent the last hour thinking about Jonghyun like he promised, and he still hasn’t gotten any further than the way he looked this morning. Maybe that’s all Jonghyun meant, but Taemin has to do better. He has to figure out what he’s going to say. What Jonghyun needs to hear.

“I thought you were Shinee’s number one fan, hyung. That means you have to believe in us no matter what,” Taemin says to Minho, just to say something.

That’s weak. It’s not much help to Kibum and Minho doesn’t even have to think before he has an answer.

“I never said you shouldn’t do your best,” Minho says. And then, “I just mean that you should do it for yourself. You shouldn’t do your best and expect people to acknowledge you, just like that. Nothing is that easy.”

Minho makes it all sound so obvious, but his words sneak up on Taemin, and then they start to make a little too much sense. He’s always done his best because he can’t live with himself if he doesn’t. It doesn’t make him feel good, or fulfilled, or anything like that, either, because there’s no end to it, ever. Life goes on, so he does too. Every day there’s something new that he takes into tomorrow. Something he could have done better, something he should have said, something he wishes he’d known at the time. Small things, but they add up, weigh him down until they make him stronger. And years will pass and some things will still be there, weighing him down.

Nobody else sees that part, and Taemin knows how different his best can look from the outside. He makes some things look so easy that people think he hasn’t worked at all to get where he is. Dancing, for example. But it only looks easy because he’s done the hard parts where no one else could see him. And then, there are things he’s so bad at that he can put everything into it, and it will still come out looking like nothing.

Love, for example.

“What if you get it wrong?” And this is suddenly so important. “You both keep acting like doing your best means doing well. It doesn’t.”

One of them has to have an answer him. One of them has to be able to tell him _something._ He’s tired of thinking and getting nowhere and then not thinking instead, and ending up back where he started. He thinks he’s the problem. He needs someone else, and he can’t use Jonghyun when he’s not here, and it’s about him.

Jingi chooses this exact moment to complain, “I’m on four hours of sleep, guys. Please.”

And the other two lose interest, start picking on him instead. 

Pretty soon they’re up. They do their thing, no one makes any mistakes, no one’s voice cracks, no one has a bad feeling going in or coming out. Taemin isn’t worried about what’s going to happen later when people see them on TV, vote for them or don’t. He’s back on Jonghyun. He was on Jonghyun the whole time.

Jingi is the one who sits with him in the backseat this time, so Jingi is the one he asks.

He doesn’t remember what Taemin said, so Taemin starts again. “If you do your best and you still can’t get something right, is that the end? Isn’t it better for everyone if you know when to stop?”

“You’re making it way more complicated than it has to be, Taeminnie,” Jingi says after a few seconds, and all that does is make Taemin feel stupid. “If you get something wrong, you either give up or you try again.”

Taemin is so frustrated. “Which one is better?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Jingi replies. “You have to figure that out on your own.”

 

They lose again.

 

When Taemin stares into the river, all he can see is the city and the sky. That’s how it always looks at this time of night.

Jonghyun is staring at him instead, slouched next to him on the park bench with his hands in his pockets and his knee pressing into Taemin’s.

“Out with it, Taeminnie. We can’t go home until you talk. If I’m this tired, you must be too.” Jonghyun pauses, and Taemin takes those few seconds to breathe. Then Jonghyun says, “Don’t make me wait,” and his voice makes Taemin forget everything.

“I’m sorry,” he says in a rush, and Jonghyun needs more than that, so he just says what he’s been thinking for the past month. “I’m sorry I tried to make you do everything again.” And, “I couldn’t move on, so I told you to move on first,” and, “I couldn’t make myself stop liking you, so I told you to stop liking me,” and with every word his body gets lighter, and it gets easier and easier to look at Jonghyun. “I only knew my own feelings. I never knew yours.”

Taemin hasn’t seen him in the sunlight since promotions started, bags under his eyes, crazy smile on his face, made up and styled within an inch of his life, and he misses that Jonghyun every single day, but he’s so beautiful right now with the moon in his hair and his eyes.

“I don’t want to hear that you’re sorry,” Jonghyun says, and Taemin guessed that much, at least. He just had to start there.

“If I say that I want to know,” and then he gets stuck, and finds another way. “Even if I can’t be there for you all the time, would you still want to be with me?”

Jonghyun’s face goes strange, almost like he’s fighting not to smile, and then he gets shy. “Yes,” he says to his knees.

“I’ll try my hardest,” Taemin tells him, and just getting the words out takes so much out of him. “It might never be enough, but I want to try.”

Jonghyun gives him some time, or maybe Jonghyun just takes some himself. Taemin doesn’t spend it with the cool spring air or the night sounds or the stars. He spends it waiting.

And then all of the sudden Jonghyun’s hand finds his, and holds on. He sounds so normal when he finally says, “What did you take me out here for? I can’t even kiss you.”

Taemin wants to laugh, but instead he squeezes Jonghyun’s hand, says, “In case you said no,” and somewhere in there he realizes he’s smiling like crazy.

They sit together. Maybe time passes. Maybe they’re going to have to let go soon. Maybe they’re going to have to go back home. Maybe Taemin just isn’t going to sleep tonight.

“Taemin-ah.”

“What, hyung?”

Jonghyun hesitates, playing with Taemin’s fingers. “This won’t be any easier than the first time.”

“I know,” Taemin says.

“Even if I’m too much, I’m going to lean on you,” Jonghyun says next. “I’ll probably just make things harder on you.”

Taemin knows that, too.

“You will either way, hyung,” he huffs, bumping his shoulder into Jonghyun’s. “I’d rather get something out of it.”

For a second Jonghyun struggles with that, head down, and Taemin watches him, heart in his throat, but then he half sobs, half laughs, and his face breaks into the biggest smile and Taemin wants to kiss him so badly he can barely take it.

And then, when that’s passed, “Taemin-ah.”

Taemin has never stopped looking at him, so he does it some more. Jonghyun has never made him wait, and he doesn’t now.

“Tonight is a good night,” Jonghyun tells him.

 

Taemin's day has started over again, and right now he’s on the part before he knows how it will go. He doesn’t want to know how much of his life he’s spent in waiting rooms. The only difference this time is that things are back to normal, back to the way they’ve always been. Jonghyun is here, sitting on the couch next to him, thigh pressed to his, voice in his ear, talking off his nerves.

It doesn’t matter what Jonghyun is saying, he won’t remember it later and maybe he’s only talking to himself, but Taemin listens anyway. He wants to.

No one else does, though.

“Why is it so loud in here today?” Kibum says, staring straight at Jonghyun and not even bothering to hide his smirk. “It’s been so peaceful this time around, I wonder what changed.”

“It’s your fault if we don’t win today.” Minho this time, giving Jonghyun that shit-eating grin that always makes his head explode. “We’ve been blaming you this whole time, but you’re here to take responsibility now~”

“You’re the ones who’ve been losing for a month, I can’t turn that around in one day,” Jonghyun retorts, but he can’t keep his laughter from Taemin, shoulder trembling against his.

Jingi stays out of it, probably taking a break from Kibum and Minho while he can. And Taemin has nothing to say, not right now. He’s not sure what would come out if he opened his mouth, anyway, when he’s already filled to bursting with things that don’t belong in this part of their life, and he keeps taking more and more of Jonghyun in.

It’s enough to be next to Jonghyun, right now. It’s enough that Jonghyun is here. He hopes that Jonghyun feels the same way.

He knows Jonghyun does, when he finally gives up arguing with Kibum and Minho, just says, “I hate you guys so much,” and smiles at Taemin. 

And he knows it when Jonghyun makes fun Taemin’s outfit, asks him, “What’s with this thing hanging off your belt,” and it’s just an excuse to touch Taemin’s butt.

And when they’re down to five minutes and Jonghyun tells Taemin, “I’m going crazy, my heart is pounding so hard right now.”

“Mine is too,” Taemin confesses. “It’s like this every time for me.”

It is. No matter how many songs they’ve promoted before, no matter how long they’ve been promoting the song they’re about to perform, no matter how many times he’s been here, how many times he’ll be here again, this moment is always hard for Taemin. He’s always terrified he’ll fuck up. He always has to tell himself he won’t. He has to tell himself he can’t. He’s not alone. He’s not doing this just for himself.

Jonghyun is here with him.

“Whatever, it’s not like we’re going to win at this point,” Taemin says, and that gets Jonghyun to laugh, but somehow he really means it. “I just want to do it with you, hyung. Win or lose, I’m okay if it’s with you.”

The look Jonghyun gets on his face tells Taemin he can’t answer that here. And then it’s time anyway, and Jonghyun takes Taemin’s shoulders in his hands and walks him out the door, keeps ahold of him until they take their places, and Taemin thinks he doesn’t need words, anyway. He thinks he understands.


End file.
